Michael Mangia is not your typical artist. And The Invisible Wall is not your typical CD. Set for release October 4, 2005 on Loft Box Records, the latest album from Hollywood-based singer-songwriter-pianist Mangia, while filled with compellingly beautiful melodies on the surface, actually buries some deep dark themes. In many ways, Michael Mangia is the David Lynch of pop music.
The Invisible Wall is the story of a painter, taking listeners through his canvas, which is filled with the lives of addicted porn stars and their admirers, children’s sci-fi fantasy books, an Italian mobster/father’s death, the façade-filled world of Hollywood and the effects of television on society. The album is all tied together through the haunting themes that lurk beneath the beauty of Mangia’s piano-driven melodies.
The new album was produced and mixed by Mangia over a 2½-year period in his own high-tech loft studio in downtown Los Angeles (which was featured in an article in Keyboard Magazine). “Having my home also be my workspace allowed me to play around with sound techniques, in a Beatles-esque way, with whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. As I continued to write, the songs pieced themselves together into what would become The Invisible Wall.” Mangia has employed the talents of guest musicians on this remarkably eclectic CD – veterans who have played with a wide range of artists, including Jimmy Paxson (Stevie Nicks), Zac Rae (Alanis Morissette) and Ed Maxwell (Gary Jules, Devics).
But Mangia’s favorite song on the album is actually not even officially listed. There is a new hidden bonus track at the end of the CD entitled “Life Support on Xmas” that – for Mangia – sums up all the themes on this album. “It really captures the meaning and the feel of this record more than any other single song. I wanted it to be like a special gift for listeners. I placed it on the CD nearly four minutes after the album has supposedly ended, because it’s a song that is very much about the peace that follows the silence.”
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